Polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis are common inflammatory diseases that may not mix well with oral steroids, a new study of 40,000 seniors suggests.
The two diseases are almost exclusively diagnosed in seniors and often occur together. Polymyalgia rheumatica causes muscle pain and stiffness in the shoulders and hips, and giant cell arteritis is a type of vasculitis that affects the head and can result in headaches and vision problems, eventually leading to blindness and stroke.
Among those studied, the risk of infection was 50% higher when oral steroids were prescribed than when they were not. The risk rose as the dosage rose, but also increased even with low daily doses of less than 5 mg of prednisolone, wrote Mar Pujades-Rodriguez, Ph.D., of the University of Leeds, with coauthors.
Steroids included prednisolone, prednisone, hydrocortisone and cortisone, and the types of infections ranged from fungal to bacterial.
“Patients and clinicians should be educated about the risk of infection, need for symptom identification, prompt treatment, timely vaccination and documentation of history of chronic infection,” such as herpes zoster, wrote the authors.
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